To the exterior dangers with which France was menaced was now added the calamity of civil war. The cause for this fresh trouble was to be found in the pretensions held by the king of Navarre, and the jealousy which he conceived against the new constable, Charles of Spain. This king of Navarre was Charles the Bad, so named for the rigour with which he had put down a sedition in Pamplona. A prince of the royal house of France on the side of his father, Philip of Évreux, he succeeded in 1349 not only to the kingdom of the Pyrenees, but to the county of Évreux, and the possession of several fiefs in Normandy. He was young, ambitious, enterprising, as were also his two younger brothers, Philip and Louis; and to attach him more securely to his interests, John betrothed to him one of his daughters, then a child, to whom he promised as marriage portion an income raised from the counties of Angoulême and Mortain. These counties having been ravaged by the English, Charles of Navarre demanded another dowry, and at the same time claimed indemnity for Champagne and Brie, former possessions of his mother which had been ceded to the crown during the preceding reign, but by treaty of which all the clauses had not been put regularly in execution. John refused to acknowledge these claims, or at any rate was in no hurry to satisfy them, and gave Angoulême and Mortain to Charles of Spain. The king of Navarre laid all the blame for this real or pretended breach of faith to the constable, and the two held a spirited altercation together in the presence of King John. With the king of Navarre was his brother Philip of Navarre, count of Longueville, who on being given the lie by the constable swore to be revenged. On leaving the scene of the quarrel he defied the constable and warned him to be on his guard against the infantes of Navarre. Charles of Spain paid so little heed to these menaces that he betook himself, insufficiently attended, to Laigle, the latest evidence of the royal favour, which was situated not six leagues from Évreux, where dwelt his enemies. As soon as the count of Longueville learned of this move he left his home at night, accompanied by a troop of men-at-arms, and entering the hôtel of the constable, murdered the latter in his bed (1354). [Sidenote: [1354-1355 A.D.]] The infantes of Navarre wrote letters of self-justification to several cities of France, and to the council of the king. At the same time they stocked their castles with supplies, assembled all their nobles, and opened up relations with the English, who were only too pleased to have a foothold thus established for them in Normandy. John, determined not to leave unpunished an act of personal vengeance that infringed seriously upon his own authority, marched in person against Évreux, and sent orders to the count d’Armagnac, his representative in Toulouse, to occupy Navarre with the whole strength of the southern troops.